Fear Factor

June 15, 2002

Bill Keller has an excellent op-ed in today's Times, Fear Factor, a follow-up to his Nucleear Nightmares piece in the NYT magazine.

The problem with threats like nuclear terror is that they are not solved but managed, not eliminated but faced, cut down to size and endured.

n the end, though, the question is not just how to fight terrorism, but how to live with it. Even if you give our leaders passing marks (or the benefit of the doubt) for dealing with the actual threat, they have been dreadful at dealing with the fear of the threat. The silly color-coded gimmicks, the pre-emptive we-told-you-so's, the hype and spin and bluster and political opportunism, the willingness to make terrorism a lobbying prop for every cause on the Republican agenda Ñ these are eating away at the administration's credibility.